Two Big East foes and one non-conference opponent have changed coaches since the end of the season.
Normally I don’t devote a lot of energy to discussing coaching changes around the Big East for men’s basketball. That’s what the Summer Check In series is for, and since that gives us a look at what the rosters actually look like, it all just makes sense to fold that together then. However, there was a coaching hire in the Big East recently that changed the coach for one of Marquette’s non-conference opponents as well. On top of that, the new coaches for both Big East teams it seems like a good time to reset the table for everyone.
Let’s go in chronological order……
Xavier: Sean Miller to Richard Pitino
Man, this one moved quickly. Xavier beat Texas in the First Four of the NCAA tournament on Wednesday, lost to Illinois on Friday, and by Monday night, Sean Miller was officially announced as the new coach of the team he just beat in the First Four. That’s wild.
Even wilder? It took about 27 hours after Texas’ official announcement for Xavier to officially announce Richard Pitino as their new head coach. Obviously there’s a certain amount of delay between “when did university officials know things in order to get moving” and “official announcements,” but man, this one got done in a hurry.
This coaching change is notable for two reasons from a Marquette perspective. First, there’s the fact that Rick Pitino is coaching St. John’s and his son, Richard Pitino, is now coaching Xavier. That’s an interesting dynamic, to say the least. The other interesting part is the fact that Pitino is the guy who was coaching the New Mexico team that just ended Marquette’s season in the first round of the NCAA tournament. We’ll see how much his career rejuvenation in the Land of Enchantment (three straight 22+ win seasons) affects Pitino’s trajectory in the Big East, as he posted a .534 overall record in eight seasons with Minnesota.
Villanova: Kyle Neptune to Kevin Willard
Villanova announced that they were relieving Kyle Neptune of his head coaching duties on March 15th, two days after they were knocked out of the Big East tournament by UConn. It’s hard to say for certain why it took 15 days for the Wildcats to officially announce that they had made their hire, particularly in light of the speed that both Texas and Xavier moved at earlier in the month, but when the hire was official, some of that delay made sense.
Kevin Willard is the new head coach on the Main Line, and he was coaching Maryland up until March 27th as he guided the Terrapins into the Sweet 16. Hard to officially move forward on a hiring when you’ve got a candidate active in the tournament, but hoooooboy, it would have gotten weird for everyone involved if Willard had turned down the Wildcats. It was something of an open secret, at least leading into Maryland’s Sweet 16 game, that Willard was VU’s target, and Willard did nothing to dissuade anyone from thinking that.
Once again: Two interesting wrinkles for this hiring in terms of how it affects Marquette. Kevin Willard is a familiar name for Big East fans, as he was the head coach at Seton Hall for 12 seasons before going to Maryland in 2022. He posted a record of .583 overall, but just .482 in Big East play in that time. That mostly has to do with five straight losing seasons to start his tenure before he broke through with a 12-6 season and his first NCAA tournament appearance in 2016. The other interesting part is that Maryland was on MU’s slate this past season as the front half of a home-and-home set with the Terrapins, and that means that one of the squads coming to Fiserv Forum next season is making a change.
And what a hire they made……..
Maryland: Kevin Willard to Buzz Williams
YEP. YOU READ THAT RIGHT.
Buzz Williams’ itch to change jobs every five or six years has led him to jump to the eastern seaboard, and right onto Marquette’s schedule. Not just onto the schedule, but it sends the former Marquette head coach to visit his former employer. I will bet you a shiny American quarter that he has no idea that he has signed up for this. I, for one, am looking forward to booing that man out of the building.
Williams is coming off a third straight NCAA tournament appearance at Texas A&M, and his second straight season where he advanced to the round of 32 as well. After posting a .668 winning percentage at Marquette, he won at a .592 clip at Virginia Tech and a .622 rate with the Aggies. He left both jobs on a bit of a hot streak, in direct opposition to leaving MU after his worst season in charge of the Golden Eagles, but it took Williams a couple of years to get things going at each of his last two stops. The Terrapins are likely to lose their entire starting five from their Sweet 16 team for various reasons, so we’ll have to see what Williams assembles on the fly when we get to next fall.
Taking the Maryland job doesn’t quite fit the motif for the jobs that Williams has let his wanderlust take him to on the last two choices. The last two times he took a basketball job with very little historical success at a school that pays an awful lot of attention to football. That’s not quite the case at Maryland, as the 2025 season marked Maryland’s 15th NCAA tournament appearance this century and their fifth Sweet 16 in that time frame as well. Football? They haven’t won nine games in a season since 2010, and haven’t finished the regular season with nine wins since 2003. It will be interesting to see how Williams deals with a job that will expect him to win immediately.
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